Share what you know,
and discover more.
Share what you know,
and discover more.
Jul 11, 2022
What I Know About This House
We are the ninth family to live in this house. Marie and Oswald Risvold bought it in 1927 for $2,385. Two years later it was sold to Gladys and Andrus Thorpe. Andrus/Andy was the oldest son of Samuel Skidmore Thorpe, the co-founder of Thorpe Brothers Realty, which developed this neighborhood out of farmland in the 1920s. Modeled after other planned neighborhoods in Baltimore and Kansas City, Thorpe introduced many suburban planning principles in an era before zoning regulations. Deed restrictions in the Country Club District carefully controlled home designs and, unfortunately, prohibited sale or lease "to any person other than the white or Caucasian race.” An organization called Just Deeds made it possible for us to add a document to the deed which renounces that racist language, although it will always be part of the home's historic record. The Country Club neighborhood was listed on National Register of Historic Places for significance in three areas: community planning, landscape architecture, and the fine collection of period revival architectural styles. Our house is a Spanish Colonial Revival style with green Spanish clay tile made by Ludowici. The previous owners added a large addition to the back of the house in 1981. We remodeled the kitchen in 2006 and found (and framed) some paper treasures under the bottom stair tread, which seem to be from 1927, although the year isn't shown. Sadly, we had to sacrifice the house's laundry chute to reconfigure the kitchen, but we still have the two old phone nooks in the house. The living room fireplace has original tiles which are Wheatley Faience from Cincinnati. (A photo of the two unique textured ship tiles sent to the local store Clay Squared yielded this information from the Tile Heritage Foundation.) When we had the wood floors refinished, we showed the foreman a mason jar of stain we had found in the basement. He looked at the handwritten label and declared that it was his own father's writing from years ago when he must have done the floors in this house. We've had the pleasure of having two previous homeowners visit us out of the blue. In 2006, Janney and Carolyn Kingsland, who lived here in 1949-1957, came. They answered our question about a strange electrical switch in the closet of the primary bedroom. It activated an alarm their parents installed to go off if Carolyn left her bedroom at night. Her sleepwalking was so profound that she had been found asleep in a snowbank a block from home! She claims that the alarmed gate to her bedroom not only kept them informed, but cured her of sleepwalking. In 2007, Bruce Christiansen, who lived here 1937-1949, visited with his son Paul. They sent some great photos of the house from that period, showing shutters and a wrought iron railing by the front door that are no longer there. Overall, however, 4510 Drexel looks just the same from the street as it does in these photos. It's a great old house!
What I Know About This House
We are the ninth family to live in this house. Marie and Oswald Risvold bought it in 1927 for $2,385. Two years later it was sold to Gladys and Andrus Thorpe. Andrus/Andy was the oldest son of Samuel Skidmore Thorpe, the co-founder of Thorpe Brothers Realty, which developed this neighborhood out of farmland in the 1920s. Modeled after other planned neighborhoods in Baltimore and Kansas City, Thorpe introduced many suburban planning principles in an era before zoning regulations. Deed restrictions in the Country Club District carefully controlled home designs and, unfortunately, prohibited sale or lease "to any person other than the white or Caucasian race.” An organization called Just Deeds made it possible for us to add a document to the deed which renounces that racist language, although it will always be part of the home's historic record. The Country Club neighborhood was listed on National Register of Historic Places for significance in three areas: community planning, landscape architecture, and the fine collection of period revival architectural styles. Our house is a Spanish Colonial Revival style with green Spanish clay tile made by Ludowici. The previous owners added a large addition to the back of the house in 1981. We remodeled the kitchen in 2006 and found (and framed) some paper treasures under the bottom stair tread, which seem to be from 1927, although the year isn't shown. Sadly, we had to sacrifice the house's laundry chute to reconfigure the kitchen, but we still have the two old phone nooks in the house. The living room fireplace has original tiles which are Wheatley Faience from Cincinnati. (A photo of the two unique textured ship tiles sent to the local store Clay Squared yielded this information from the Tile Heritage Foundation.) When we had the wood floors refinished, we showed the foreman a mason jar of stain we had found in the basement. He looked at the handwritten label and declared that it was his own father's writing from years ago when he must have done the floors in this house. We've had the pleasure of having two previous homeowners visit us out of the blue. In 2006, Janney and Carolyn Kingsland, who lived here in 1949-1957, came. They answered our question about a strange electrical switch in the closet of the primary bedroom. It activated an alarm their parents installed to go off if Carolyn left her bedroom at night. Her sleepwalking was so profound that she had been found asleep in a snowbank a block from home! She claims that the alarmed gate to her bedroom not only kept them informed, but cured her of sleepwalking. In 2007, Bruce Christiansen, who lived here 1937-1949, visited with his son Paul. They sent some great photos of the house from that period, showing shutters and a wrought iron railing by the front door that are no longer there. Overall, however, 4510 Drexel looks just the same from the street as it does in these photos. It's a great old house!
Jul 11, 2022
Posted Date
Jul 11, 2022
Historical Record Date
Jul 11, 2022
Source Name
home title, local history, past residents
Sep 01, 1980
Sep 01, 1980
4510 Drexel Avenue, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Photo by Jim Fridley as part of the National Register of Historic Places survey of the Edina Country Club neighborhood, September 1980.
Posted Date
Feb 20, 2022
Historical Record Date
Sep 01, 1980
Source Name
United States Department of the Interior - National Park Service
Jul 01, 1951
1951 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota. Shows 4510 Drexel in zone 719, and on page 42.
Jul 01, 1951
Posted Date
Mar 18, 2024
Historical Record Date
Jul 01, 1951
Source Name
Library of Congress
